Curation is my new fav word

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With the flood of information came the responsibility of each of us to critically evaluate our daily intake. We jump from post to tweet to text to tool to (maybe just maybe) printed word.

For over twenty years one of my roles has been the aquisition of resources (sounds so stuffy and academic, huh? We all like to, um, sound hip and not use stuffy big words today…. I mean aquisition— really? resources—- seriously? lol I am being sarcastic now).

Librarianship, education, the media, journalism and numerous other communication forms are no longer what they were just a decade ago. Actually, if you remain calm and resist the temptation to succcumb to fear about the loss of the traditional hierarchy of information and the unknown territory ahead (GRIN- genetics, robotics, information, nanotechnology), it is quite an exciting time to be alive.

Perhaps the librarian and the journalist are both merging with what museums have always called “curation”. I just read “We’re All Journalists Now” by Soctt Gant. I guess we are all librarians, too! Unfortunately, some collections are much better than others. Some media stations are better than others. Some news sources are better than others.

Decisions, Decisions

Oh– for a simpler time.

Then again, maybe simplicity wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and neither is information overload.

Every minute is just another minute to take another breath.

Curation is like picking fruit and sharing it with others in a basket.

Picture from: http://www.atcna.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/curation.jpeg

Obituary for Revision

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Revision passed away this morning, after a long battle with social media tools and instant gratification of verbiage. Survived by Writing Process siblings, Editing and Grammar, both now housed in assisted living facilities, Revision is remembered by readers and writers across the globe as having contributed to the accumulation of literature of all genres, the  history of the world, and the knowledge of mankind for over 500 years.

Born in the Gutenberg family and cradled in the printing press, Revision led a life of unmatchable variety and creativity.  Revision worked tirelessly and his work has been acclaimed by experts as one of the greatest, yet most unrecognized achievements on record.

Sadly, Revision’s offspring are tweeting and posting with such reckless abandon–some fear the huge amass of wealth accumulated over centuries, within the Writing Process Family, could be squandered in only a few years.  A world hungry for wisdom could possibly be left in ignorant poverty because disposable words and ideas are now tossed aside along with fast food packaging.

 

A decision will be forthcoming as to whether Revision will be cremated or placed in a digital landfill.

 

 

The Emperor’s New Clothes (you and me)

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I am the child who is calling out, “Look!  The Emperor is wearing nothing at all!”

Hush!  You cannot say such a thing.

The emperor, in my analogy, is us.  Those of you scanning blogs, nings, social personal network sites, twitter, and a host of Web 2.0 user-generated content spaces (which I should name but I know people only stay tuned to a post for an average of 12 seconds) may identify with this blog post.  With our smart phones in our pockets and our many computer portals close at hand, we have built up a momentum of constant sharing.  Each of us, if we are honest, has personal interests and goals- one of which is simply to “keep up” with the current information (r)evolution.  We can’t.

Just as mankind always has, we look to each other (friend/follow) for guidance.  And in that quest to stay onboard the fast moving train, we gracefully glide from station to station (phone, computer station, portal, email check, tweet, Facebook post, network check, IM, text message).

Secretly, in our hearts, we think about getting off the train.  We remember days when an hour was spent in contemplation.  We remember things like:
the joy of making something with our own hands
reading a book
baking bread
no ringtones to distract us to some other place

The emperor is wearing nothing.
Nothing at all.
I am taking a break for a moment….just to reflect.

Sharing amongst Friends and Followers

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Sharing with me:

I learned about the power of participation from Mean Laura. Social media is only an effective tool when there is give and take. On twitter, she recently asked “In ONE word, what do you expect from 2012?”  I chose the word SHARE because I expect and hope to participate (both give and take) with others.

 

My good friend, the doctor of musicology, taught me that entertainment isn’t all bad and is, perhaps, as important as education.  Am I obsessed with meaning?  Must everything be significant and educational?  Go to thesaurus.com and check the synonyms for educate (edify, coach, enlighten) and entertain (delight, inspire, gratify). Words are just words but we decide the personal links to our lives.  The doctor is all about entertainment and inspiration through music.  He has introduced me to genres of great music that would have been outside my comfort zone and now has his own Internet radio show on xstream radio. What does he do with his love of music?  He shares.

 

And then there’s my artist friend, Zinnia, who taught me that we are all unique.  Technology is only a tool, like a fork.  You don’t need a fork to eat, but it does make it easier and more polite.  You do, however, need to eat.  Zinnia uses technology to create unique expression and to share that with others.  She helped me learn to take a risk with my own unique expression.  She does that much better than I do.  Yesterday, Zinnia let me pick a button from her bag of lovely colorful words…I chose the word share.

 

 

 

In 2012, let’s share

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Note to self:  It is time to let go of the negative attitude against Facebook, triviality, superficial nonsensical information quests, and start participating in the new hierarchy.  It is time to “practice what you preach” and put people first.  The hierarchy of the past placed the experts, the sages, the skilled and knowledgeable at the top.  Now, amongst the toppled rubble on the Internet (no library stacks), we all have a voice.

Was it an illusion that the library held the answers and helped point the way to a meaningful existence?  After all, a book or a library of books is created by human beings and human thought. Oh, but it was convenient to rely on experts to sift through nonsense and provide an assortment of the highest quality of information (may there always be libraries).

We still learn, as we always have, in “collision with others” (Vygotsky). We learn because we discuss, we argue, we collaborate, we confront, and (most importantly) we share.

Learn-Learn-Learn!  That seems to be my favorite topic and, as earning my PhD in 2012 suggests, my ultimate goal.  For a year or two, I have been saying I think most people are more interested in being entertained than being educated.  The old, perhaps trite, saying holds true that the more I learn the more I realize how little I know.  Learning how to thinking critically is more important than gathering knowledge. Yet, even more important than critical thinking is learning how to share.

The Blue Screen of Death

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Out of nowhere, my less than 2 year old well-running HP computer, suddenly confronted me with the terrifying blue screen of death. And the resulting hours of anxiety did not end well. I will spare the gory details of why so many hours of work were instantly squashed into nothingness. What I want to point out is the baffling concepts of thought that went through my head over the 24 hours after the event.

I felt like I had been shot. I pictured a wound in my side…a gaping hole which I covered with bandages but did not want to see. I wanted to cover it up with gauze and avoid facing the damage, exactly how much was lost- videos, projects, presentations, pictures, documents, and programs that represented hard work and irreplaceable creative energy. It wasn’t that I had no clue about the danger of losing files and had not taken any precautions. I did have all of my current work (my dissertation for sure!) in numerous other locations, such as flash drives, external hard drives, the cloud, and emails to myself.

It was 8pm when the terror struck. I slept little that night. What kept me calm was the empathy and genuine concern I was given from my immediate family. First thing the next morning, my husband and son both sprang into action to investigate a data recovery system specialist. In the afternoon, a phone conversation with my daughter changed my perspective.

You see, I was confused and appalled at the feeling of loss over digital content. I am not one to have many attachments to physical objects. As a writing teacher, one of my projects to promote writing was the creation of paper mache storybowls. After creating a storybowl to represent a personal narrative, the writer/teller places small objects in the bowl that correspond to elements of the story. I made several storybowls over the course of a few years, one in which I tell about the time I lost my wedding ring! Actually, using the storybowl, I weave stories of other rings I have lost- one on my move to Texas at the age of twelve- a ring my father gave me which I lost in the Niabrara River. The theme of loss culminates with loss of my wedding ring- the most important of symbols. However, the point of the story is that what the ring represents is love. My husband gave me another ring exactly like the one I lost. I never found my father’s ring which is somewhere deep in the Niabrara River, but I did not lose what it represents…love.

Unfortunately, one day in my library, my storybowls were thrown out inadvertently in the trash! I was a bit embarassed to admit to myself the anguish I felt over the loss of my storybowls. They were physical representations of significance to me…my life stories.

As I experience my physical library going through a metamorphosis from physical to virtual, I am not always comfortable with the chaos, with the letting go, with the constant change in formats and in my own thinking. As I watch everyone becoming “hooked” on their tech gadgets, constantly updating statuses and checking emails, I can’t help but wonder if we are heading in the wrong direction or if we will find a balance between the physical and the virtual.

And then…as I experienced the blue screen of death, I realized that digital loss feels exactly like physical loss.

Back to the phone conversation with my daughter Melanie.

She began talking with me about how we attach ourselves to “things”. We have a friend who suffers from the debilitating problem of hoarding physical things. Although I am not qualified to explain the psychological reasons for hoarding, I suppose our attachment to digital files might be similar to our attachment to physical objects. Again and again, throughout our lives, we are required to let go. Melanie explained to me, with an expression of understanding and empathy, that while this loss can be painful- it can also be liberating. We let go of the non-essential and our burden is lightened.

My wound is healing. I may receive a call soon from the data restoration services guy (but I am fairly sure all of my data was lost). What is helping me gain strength after meeting the blue screen of death is the caring support of others. My storybowl about my lost rings was thrown out, but I did not lose what it meant. The Beatles were right. All you need is love.

Twitter: Who, How, Why

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I often contemplate life AFTER the toppling of the hierarchy of information. User-generated content, crowdsourcing, and a host of new media formats are now the top ways we access information. And one of the most popular new modes is Twitter.

Personally, I find Twitter more useful, more interesting, and more educational than Facebook. Thomas Cramptom blogged it this way, “Facebook is WHO you know, Twitter is WHAT you know.” I agree because I find FB is much social trivia (which has its place) alongside photos and current events. Twitter, on the other hand, can help each user form a personal learning network or professional learning community. There are no hurt feelings about not being “friended” and no pressure to “like” anything or anyone. Information is shared for the sake of being important to whoever finds it meaningful or significant.

Now: WHO will you follow? When you think about who you are, what is personally meaningful to you, what you are passionate about…a tool like Twitter allows you to move down a path toward those personally significant ideas, whether professional or simply interesting.

HOW will you follow? I learned from a colleague (Laura Solomon and her book on social media for librarians) that online networking tools require participation. Just as social etiquette teaches us to be polite, to use manners, and to think of others (not just what we want for ourselves), social networking is an ongoing dialogue that works best when we give credit to others and are willing to share with them.
Personally, the tweets I find most useful are those that share informative tidbits, links to cool cutting-edge information, or personal reflections on something meaningful. While Twitter can be great for sharing locations at conferences or live events, I don’t think that is the best use. Other geo-location apps are available to share where we are! Topics like what we are eating, who we are with, or our plans for the evening are best posted on FB, in my opinion (and maybe even limited to groups and individuals who are interested). As new tools emerge (and perhaps another tool will replace the ones we are now using), it becomes critical to understand the purpose.

WHY use Twitter? As I mention quite often on this blog, information delivery has been revolutionized. I can no longer keep up with current modes of access, storage, or any other information-related term. I need my personal and professional learning network. Oh- I still need books and other formats of information. But, without my PLN, I would be less able to cope with the constant barrage of high-tech gadgets, apps, and new media formats. As I scroll through my Twitter feed, my feelings about balancing the physical world and the digital world are validated by others who understand the need to pause and reflect on being human.

Twitter is just one of many tools that are helping me collaborate with others who share my quest for a positive outlook on the other side of the information revolution.

TMI: Too Much Information

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You may think “TMI” is an acronym for innuendo or a trivial amusing anecdotal incident. I would like to use it in a different context, one that points out the fact that Too Much Information is now the state in which we live.
Do you ever feel like you have reached your limit of information intake?
It is over the top…too many social networks, apps, upgrades, blogs, cloud content sites, and on and on.
Just today, I read about a school in California that has a NO Technology policy which reminded me of the Amish way of life. (I dare you to NOT click the hyperlink!) Would it be possible to turn off all of our technology applications? Could we live and teach the next generation with pencils, chalkboards, and a garden outside our window?
A few points to consider:

1. Innovation– New media technology trends are growing exponentially at this very moment. How can we give the next generation all the tools they need? For the past 5 years, I have been learning at the “speed of light!” My own children are grown and I have an interest in new media as I see my career as a school librarian totally disintegrating around me. Not to worry- I have moved on into the “e” world and so has my library, but the physical space of the library will never be the same. I have diligently embraced innovation and yet, I must admit, there is no way to keep up.
2.Prediction-I follow some futurists who predict both wonderful future trends and frightening ones (see Sherry Turkle and Nicholas Carr). How can we manage to utilize best practices when they change every single day? Academic publishing is extremely slow, yet the world is changing quickly. This topsy-turvey dilemma causes a problem of contradictions. The information hierarchy has flipped in the past 5 years. I keep saying that “the hierarchy of information has toppled” and education will never be the same.
Crowd-sourcing and user-generated content (wikipedia and youtube) are at the top of the hierarchy and the experts who have spent years studying a topic are not. How can we predict the ramifications of this toppled hierarchy? Certainly, there are both positive and negative effects.

3. Protection- Can we block the next generation from this ensaught of cyberspace, new media, and ever-changing technology? Could we be like the Amish and strive for a calmer lifestyle, modeled after an historical period prior to the hectic state in which we live? Or, would it be a disservice to deprive them of the latest technology?

4.Balance– Can we have it both ways? Can we learn to balance a high tech virtual world with a healthy physical world? The next generation has no choice but to live with technological advancement. You may agree that turning it off would be forcing our youth to live in an outdated mode. Not that I don’t appreciate the slow pace of times past! I have always said (ask my husband) that I should have been born a few hundred years ago…I love the pioneers! But the world is not taking place in the year 1825…it is the 21st century. Is a balance between the old (tradition) and the new (innovation) possible?

Our Challenge: our responsibility as librarians, educators, parents, and good citizens, is to prepare our youth for the future in the 21st century- but the skills needed are changing before our eyes! How can we prepare our youth for a future that requires skills never before seen, skills we do not posses or understand? Perhaps the answer lies within the toppled hierarchy. Perhaps the answer lies in what used to be a library- a collection of the best of mankind. The best of mankind (humankind or the collective heroic deeds accomplished throughout history) is now crowd-sourced and user-generated. Our role as information providers is to point the way toward what is meaningful. Ironically, that has always been the goal; however, since the “topple” the structure appears chaotic or blurry.

One thing remains clear- people are still people. The human brain is still the most amazing and complex thing in our universe. Two things are natural to the human brain: learning and reflection. The brain is built to learn and the brain automatically reflects learning through memories, knowledge and emotion. In this new age, on the otherside of the toppled hierarchy, each individual has the opportunity to learn, to reflect, and to contribute.
Let’s hope the contribution is more than a photo of a pizza from lunch uploaded to the latest social network tool.

Wait- maybe there have always been tons of pizza pictures surrounding, drowning each exquisite poem. Maybe we have always had to be on the lookout for a glimpse of something worthwhile amidst the clutter of the mundane.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

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The phrase “inquiring minds want to know” may bring a mental picture of yourself in line at a grocery store gazing at a crazy picture of a celebrity with an alien on the cover of the National Enquirer magazine. Yes, inquiring minds want to know! Do we, as librarians and educators, still need to nudge them toward better inquiry? I believe so.

The human brain is built for inquiry and naturally seeks new ideas. In fact, Baylor College of Medicine neuroscientist David Eagleman says, “the human brains runs on conflict.” Child developmental psychologist, Lev Vygotsky, shared the same view nearly a century ago. Vygostky believed the student’s brain learned through social interaction, going as far as to say in “collision with others.”

Eliza Dresang’s work with radically changing digital information found that the “use of computer technology does not have to be a socially isolating activity and may, in fact, provide greater connectivity in a social environment” (Dresang 2005 p. 192).

If social interaction is of great importance to learning, as experts illustrate, the rise in social media may be beneficial to inquiry and knowledge; however, critics argue that much of social networking is shared trivia or unrelated to educational content. Our goal as information professionals and educators is not only to provide access and promote inquiry, but to provide the BEST resources while helping students prepare the BEST projects and share them in creative ways.
A study on every day information seeking behavior of preteens found that “libraries and information professionals labor to build collections, both physical and virtual, under the assumption that access to print and media is of central importance to resolving users’ information needs. In discussing everyday-life information problems with tweens, however, we found that it is access to other people that often makes or breaks an information search” (Meyer et al. 2009 p. 337.)

The AASL (American Association of School Librarians) standards for the 21st Century Learner present four skill sets that learners must build to thrive in a complex information environment. These skills include inquiry, application of knowledge, participation in productivity, and a pursuit of personal and aesthetic growth. Encouraging (nudging toward inquiry) students to succeed in the future not only requires building skills, it also necessitates embracing a flexible disposition and personal responsibility. AASL believes school libraries are essential to developing these skills- both as individuals and as a community because learning has a social context (AASL 2011 p. 3).
The term itself “information literacy” has been challenged by some who argue about other multiple literacies, including digital literacy, media literacy, and a new term championed by a group of librarians- transliteracy (http://librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com/ ). Transliteracy is The ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.
Eric Meyers illustrates the blending of literacy skills by children within a shared virtual environment (SVE) by saying, “Logging in, creating an online identity, chatting, and sharing a profile with others are skills and “literacies” that transfer across several applications (Meyers 2009 p. 231).
Literacy is like breathing. Reading is mental inhalation and writing is mental exhalation. The human brain craves both. I have always wondered how educators could separate the two. A health teacher would never say, “This semester we are going to study inhalation and next semester we will study exhalation!” To take the health metaphor further, literacy is like healthy food. A constant diet of junk food will lead to sluggishness and poor performance.
What makes it good? Aesthetically pleasing resources, with accurate high quality content, are available but not always easy to obtain, especially in the “online sea of chaos” (I use that phrase on my blog at https://vhill.edublogs.org/ ). The constant stream of user-generated content on social networking sites and through texting encourages students to post and upload without much thought or revision. Are we consuming mass quantities of literacy junk food? The health teacher would suggest a balanced diet and the information literacy teacher might agree.

As a National Writing Project Trainer, I believe strongly in the power of personal connections to all literary formats. Unless an individual finds personal meaning in literacy (including digital literacy, transliteracy), the effort is often irrelevant or quickly forgotten.
So what DO inquiring minds want to know and need to know in this rapidly changing digital world? Perhaps the nudge toward inquiry may happen through social interaction and numerous communication formats, but it may also need a campaign for “healthy intake” based on proven research processes, like the Big 6.
Research models, like Mike Eisenberg’s Big 6, give specific steps for the research process from defining the problem, locating sources, gathering, organizing, creating, and evaluating the individual’s performance. Although formats have rapidly (radically) changed over the past decade, the underlying criteria used to evaluate best teaching practices and for evaluation of resources remain constant. Good teaching is still good teaching in any format. Meaningful content can be high quality in any format. After exploring the new media format of virtual worlds, I decided to create a 3D Model of Mike Eisenberg’s Big 6 in Second Life. An avatar (an individual represented virtually by a character) can simulate moving through the research process while gathering information needed to build a virtual 3D vehicle.

How will literacy change in the future, as students move into virtual worlds, and as augmented reality becomes part of our landscape? We will need to make sure we are providing students with the opportunities for critical thinking, for making informed decisions, application of knowledge, synthesis and evaluation of personal growth. Adapting strategies and processes that have proven to be successful, such as the Big 6, will assure that our students “with inquiring minds” will make good choices.
Because user-generated content has revolutionized information seeking behavior (think of Youtube), waiting in line at the grocery store may actually be a fair analogy. And outside the grocery store is a bake sale! Homemade goodies (information uploaded by anyone and everyone) is now commonplace on the Internet. Information is no longer primarily provided by professional publishers. The produce department may be full of ripe vegetables and fruits and grocery stores now stock a wide selection of healthy foods and organic options. But, we all know, when waiting in line at the grocery store, kids are always tempted by the candy.

American Association of School Librarians. 2011. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/learningstandards/AASL_LearningStandards.pdf
Dresang, Eliza T. 2005. The information-seeking behavior of youth in the digital environment. Library Trends 54, no. 2: 178-196.
Eagleman, David. 2011. http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/05/ideas-bank/david-eagleman-the-human-brain-runs-on-conflict
Mcleod, Saul. 2007. Vygotsky. http://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
Meyers, Eric M. 2009. Tip of the iceberg: Meaning, identity, and literacy in preteen virtual worlds. Journal of Education for Library & Information Science 50, no. 4: 226-236.
Meyers, Eric M., Karen E. Fisher, and Elizabeth Marcoux. 2009 “Making Sense of an Information World: The Everyday-Life Information Behavior of Preteens.” Library Quarterly 79, no. 3: 301-41.
Newman, Bobbie., Tom Ipri, Anthony Molaro, Gretchen Caserotti, and Lane Wilkinson. 2011. http://librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com/
Weekly World News. 2008. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WeeklyWorldNews (creativecommons wiki)